In the context of an increasingly globalised world and rapid technological change, employers do not only merely look for technical knowledge (so called 'hard skills') when selecting candidates, but tend to rather prioritise those characteristics involving personality traits, such as creative thinking, communication, negotiation, flexibility, which determine so called transversal or soft skills. Furthermore, as recognised by the Council Recommendation 22/05/2018 on key competences for lifelong learning, transversal skills are particularly relevant for the development of those key competences enabling young students to become active and responsible citizens in today's society. While the role of creativity and non-formal education in helping students to develop such skills has been recognised, education providers, including those in the field of VET, would highly benefit from the inclusion of such learning approaches in their school curriculum. The Playing 4 Soft Skills project aims to address the existing gap in market demand concerning transversal skills by introducing creative learning, non-formal education and digital tools in the context of vocational education providers with the objective to enhance students’ awareness and ability to recognize and develop relevant transversal skills. More precisely, the specific objectives of the Playing 4 Soft Skills project include:1) Enhance students’ awareness of existing soft skills by actively engaging them in non-formal learning activities and provide with useful tools and material in order to assess and further develop such transversal skills in the context of a playful learning environment. 2) Provide teachers with supportive tools and meaningful training on methodologies aimed at enhancing students’ acquisition of specific soft skills through non-formal education and equip teachers in order to act as effective facilitators during the implementation of non-formal learning activities. The project will target current VET students (aged 14-19) and teachers working as part of VET programs across the European Union. More precisely, the Playing 4 Soft Skills project aims to reach around 1000 students and 300 teachers across Germany, Italy, Spain, Latvia, Poland and other EU countries. The project will build on the expertise of partner organisations working in the field of non-formal education, creative learning, digital technology and innovative thinking in order to involve students both as participants and feedback providers and teachers in the role of facilitators. The project aims to benefit VET providers, teachers, educators and policy makers with a series of project results which can be transferable to other educational contexts across the EU. The project results will include the following intellectual outputs: (1) Soft Skills Evaluation Report identifying the most relevant transversal skills to be developed in the context of learning activities with a set of relative indicators in order to measure progress, which will be produced after confronting students and teachers needs with expectations from employers in terms of soft skills; (2) Soft Skills Game Manual for participants explaining the rules, context and objectives of a new educational game tailored to the activation and development of transversal skills and based on innovative game formats developed by project partners; (3) Soft Skills Training Notebook, a guiding instrument for teachers providing training on pedagogical aspects related to non-formal education, explaining in details the role of facilitators and outlining instruments for progress evaluation; (4) Soft Skills Training App, an interactive tool aimed at enhancing students engagement in learning activities and foster soft skills activation and self-evaluation. By involving students in non-formal education activities, they are expected to develop a deeper understanding of transversal skills and further acquire the 'key competences' allowing them to grow as responsibile citizens and to be competitive on the job market. Thanks to the support provided by the digital app, students will be challenged to express their creative potential and ability to interact, communicate and emphatise in the context of both real and virtual scenarios. Such activities will also be beneficial to teachers as they will acquire further knowledge and expertise in the field of soft skill activation and non-formal learning, therefore refining their teaching skills in a crucial area for the future of education and training. Overall, project results aim to have a wider impact outside the boundaries of the project as these will provide with relevant outputs to be used by VET providers, educational institutions, policy makers and public authorities for the inclusion of non-formal education and creative learning as part of school curriculum and education policies at local, regional, national and EU level.

EuroKey is an important project with the slogan ‘Eurokey: The key to Globalization for a Successful Business World’,with a vocational education program which aims to contribute the innovative enterprises aiming global competetiveness by creating culture – focused new market researches and marketing strategies, managing the multinational working environment and contributing to employees to develop cultural adoptation skills.Eurokey is also important for the training program and tools developed to understand the new markets occurred in global culture and with the important and detailed analysis made between globalization, culture, business world and vocational education. General aim of the project is to create open, accessible, knowledge and skill focused vocational training environment (CVET) for SMEs and digital enterpreneurs according to the country based target markets; providing competetiveness, providing contribution to prepare suitable environment for the cooperation of local and international investors. Target group is composed of the responsible employee and employer of foreign operations in companies who want to be in global market, digital enterpreneurs and the university students in management, marketing, communication and design departments.The project consortium is from 5 countries Turkey, Italy, Poland, Latvia and Iceland, with 3 universities, 1 Vocational Training Center, 1 Enterpreneurship Development Center-incubator, 1 Chamber of Commerce, 1 Cluster, 1 organised ındustrial Zone, 1 Business Women Association, 1 Governoship.And,-developing new business models - for SMEs and digital enterpreneurs who want to grow in global market - which focuses on cultural diversities that directly effect sales and marketing both in digital area and hosting countries.-Contributing the enterprises and enterpreneurs to prepare innovative marketing strategies focused on culture of hosting countries.-Sharing the best practises of companies who managed to be in the foreign markets in the field of management of multi culture working environment.-For employers and enterpreneurs – using vocational skills effectively and for students –developing cultural competences and managing multi-culture environment skills are the main special aims of the project.Eurokey project has been implemented successfully according to Result Based Management( Inputs-Activities-Outputs-Outcome- Impact) methodology. The inputs provided are, the quality of the consortium, effectively spent budget and right planning of activities and outputs have led to the planned results. And the outcomes of the project are helping the enterpreneurs and enterprises how to find a place in global markets with the trainings developing the competences according to the needs and motivating them to have a comteteive capacity.To reach this; A2 Eurok-KeyLab & Research Analysis activity has been realised and 4 outputs have been obtained as a result of this activity:O1 International Cultural Environment and SME’s Report O2 Succesful Organizations in Global Marketing 3 Multinational Focused Training in Global Strategies O4 The Management of (Digital) Multiculturalism at EntrepreneurshipTo reach these outputs, a comparative analysis the effects of culture in globalization has been made for 5 partner countries, 2 surveys have been implemented to 40 SME and start-up in 5 countries, 241 courses in 19 countries 66 universities have been examined and reported.Another outcome of the project was A3 Need Analysis Activity which is determining the needs of staff who are/will be working in multinational environment and foreign markets , with surveys. Two outputs have been obtained.O5 Intercultural Management Skills Needs AnalysisO6 Intercultural Management Skills in a Multi-National Single Market Needs Analysis Report In this part a survey has been prepared to measure the management of international businesses of target groups with demographic variables, and the cultural intelligence and cultural sensitivity scales have been prepared according to countries. Surveys and scales have been implemented to 200 people from 5 countries and a skills map has been prepared.With the A4 Methodology & Design Of Training Modules Activity; to obtain the related outcomes, developing the skills of staff who work/will work in international operations of companies to manage the intercultural skills and by this way getting a competetiveness advantage, restructuring the human resources of companies in n integrated and global target focused the following output as been obtained.O7 Intercultural Management Skills Training Program Modules in Global Markets ; With A5 Training Material Development activity; O8 Intercultural Management Skills Manual O9 Multilanguage E-learning Platform O10 Digital Measurement Tool prepared using Game Mechanism (Gamification) outputs have been obtained. With A6 Pilot Implementation, online training have been implemented to 155 business owner, professionals and students from 9 countries for 3 days. And with Eurokey Training Platform, open training sources have been made.With “An İndustrial Policy For The Globalisation Era” which is a sub title of ‘EU Commission 2020 Aims Second priority Sustainable Development’ , it is mentioned that the environment for SMEs will be developed and a strong base for industry will be supoorted for global competetiveness. It is aimed to ease the mobility of labor , providing balance between labor suplly and demand, strengthening capacity of social partners, and a strengtehened cooperation between stakeholders